Ox Bile, 60 capsules (Willow)

Description

60 capsules
Ingredients: 
Ox-Bile extract   130mg

Directions for use: Take one to two capsules daily or as prescribed by your healthcare practitioner.

More about Ox Bile: 
Consequent from a bovine source to maintain its botanical activity, Ox Bile is a suitable supplement to the liver’s production of bile.
Bile is gastral aid that helps your body process fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins in a way that it can use them instead of just store them. Likewise, bile is part of the digestive system’s flushing process. Without it, the normal bacteria in your system starts to get rampant.
Bile salts are one of the primary components of bile. Bile is a greenish-yellow fluid made by the liver and stored in our gallbladder. Bile salts help with the digestion of fats in our bodies. They also help us to absorb fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K.  Furthermore, to bile salts, bile contains cholesterol, water, bile acids and the pigment bilirubin. The role of bile (and bile salts) in the body is to:
Aid digestion by breaking down fats
Help absorb fat-soluble vitamins
Eliminate waste products
How Bile Salts Work
Bile helps enzymes in the body break down fats into fatty acids, which are needed for many body functions. Bile is made in the liver, then travels to the gallbladder through a channel that’s called the cystic duct. It is then stored in the gallbladder between meals. Once we eat, it’s squeezed through the bile duct to break down the food before it moves to the intestines.

Benefits of Bile Salts
Eliminate Cholesterol and Toxic Compounds: Bile salts are amphipathic, which means they have both a water and fat-soluble region. This allows them to bind to fats and oils and emulsify them in the gut, which is a water-based environment, so they can be broken down by digestive enzymes. This is how bile salts play a role in cholesterol regulation and help get rid of wastes and toxins through bile.
Near 500 milligrams of cholesterol are converted into bile acids and eliminated in our bile every day. Cholesterol is secreted into bile, which allows it to be eliminated from the body. Free cholesterol is insoluble in water-based solutions, but when it’s in bile, it’s made soluble by bile salts and lipids like lecithin. In this state, cholesterol can be transported and removed from the body through digestion.
Fight Infectious Agents: Bile acids also work as a defense mechanism to fight infectious agents and toxins that can lead to a number of diseases, including sepsis, herpes, psoriasis and parvovirus infection. Bile works as a detoxifying detergent that protects us from viruses that have an outer lipoprotein structure. This is called a “physio-chemical defense system,” and it wouldn’t be able to protect us properly if there weren’t enough bile salts present in the body.
Promote Gallbladder & Liver Function: Bile salts can also improve the symptoms of diseases affecting the liver. They improve liver function by assisting in the process that removes toxic substances and pathogens from the body. If you have a bile salt insufficiency, taking supplements may help improve conditions of the liver like cystic fibrosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and primary biliary cirrhosis. Bile salts can help to advance gallbladder function by reducing inflammation of the bile ducts and helping normalize blood flow. They also help relieve gas and bloating that can be caused by gallbladder dysfunction.
Help Dissolve Gallstones: Gallstones, which are composed mostly of cholesterol particles, occur when cholesterol and other matter that are within bile bind together and become solid. As a result, they become lodged in the inner lining of the gallbladder and grow into cholesterol gallstones over time. Bile salts help dissolve gallstones that have formed in the gallbladder, and they help to prevent them from forming in the first place by breaking down fats before crystallization. According to research, ursodeoxycholic acid, a naturally occurring bile acid, can be used as an anti-inflammatory agent that works as an alternative therapeutic approach in high surgical risk patients with symptomatic gallstones.
Allow for the Digestion and Absorption of Fats and Nutrients: One of the main functions of bile salts is to solubilize ingested fat and fat-soluble vitamins, which allow for their digestion and absorption. This happens when bile salts cause fat globules to break down into very small, microscopic droplets. This process is called emulsification, and it’s important for the digestion of fats because it increases the surface area of the fat so it can be digested by lipases, the main enzymes that break down dietary fats.
Affect Bacteria in the Gut: Bile salts have antimicrobial activity and can protect us against gram-positive bacteria that grow in the gut, and they actually play a role in intestinal homeostasis by controlling the size and composition of the gut. Bile salts are antibacterial compounds that disrupt bacterial membranes, and a decrease in them may be correlated with an alteration of the gut microbiome and an overgrowth of potential pathogens. Bile salts also work as environmental signals for intestinal bacteria and species that are adapted to the gut and able to endure the antibacterial activities of the salts. This is an intricate relationship that helps regulate the bacteria present in the microbiota.
Help Control Blood Sugar Levels: Bile acids act as metabolic regulators and play a role in glucose, lipid and energy expenditure. Enhancing bile acid signalling in the intestine can contribute to glucose homeostasis, making bile acids useful as potential therapeutic targets for diabetes.
Trigger the Release of Glutathione: Studies indicate that when bile salts allow for the increase of bile flow, the amount of biliary glutathione increases too. What’s so special about glutathione? Well, it’s considered the “mother of all antioxidants” because it plays a role in several vital bodily processes. It helps the liver detoxify fat before bile is emitted, protects the liver against oxidative injury, helps detoxify certain toxins, and binds with other substances so they are more digestible and effective.
Eliminate Bilirubin: Bile salts work to eliminate bilirubin from the body, which is important because the accumulation of this waste product can have harmful effects on your health. In fact, too much bilirubin in the skin and mu